T.V. Digest #23 Reveals the Paid Tier
A digest of recent posts+ site news + paywall archive
This is the 23rd issue of what used to be an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes. In this particular issue, I’m also including some publication updates and information about the new paid tier.
If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.
Table of ContentsThe News
I’ve enabled payments on Textual Variations!
Starting now, you can sign up for a paid subscription at $2.99/month or $29.99/year.
In connection with this, I have moved some older articles in the archives behind the paywall. You can browse them in the new category menu here but I’m also including a quick index at the end of this post for the sake of convenience.
So, signing up for or upgrading to a paid tier will give you full access to the archive.
Note that every new article published will initially still be free. So, if you sign up now without a paid tier, you won’t miss out on any new content.
Could this approach change in the future? Perhaps.
But right now I like to think of the paid subscriptions primarily as tips or donations that will support my writing, rather than the cost of new premium articles. So, if you could subscribe or upgrade to a paid tier, I’d really appreciate it.
What’s Going on with the Schedule
If you’ve been following this publication for a while, you probably know that I strug-gle with sticking to a regular publication schedule. I’ve been meaning to get to a point where I can release a new post every week. But I’ve finally come to realize that this is simply not going to work, at least for the foreseeable future.
My best essays often take a considerable amount of time to research and put together. And there are often external factors that interfere with my plans. So, I’ve decided I’m just going to publish whenever I have the time and inspiration, thereby freeing myself of the stress and pressure inherent to the pace of regular Substacking.*
*Honestly, I look at some of my peers with envy. Like, how do you guys churn out so much content so quickly? Where do you get the energy?
Going forward then, my publication schedule is going to remain inconsistent. But I hope to make up for potentially long gaps between posts with high quality work.
FTNC Updates
I am still adding newsletters to the Film and Television Newsletter directory.
Here are the most recent additions:
The Digest
June 3
I don’t write a lot about games, but with Alan Wake 2, I had to make an exception.
A surreal, artful survival horror game that features the most seamless integration of live action and gameplay I’ve ever seen, it is easily one of the best things currently available on the PS5. But more than that, it is also part of a larger shared universe created by the independent Finnish company Remedy Entertainment.
Putting together a bunch of clues and breadcrumbs left by Remedy across multiple games, webpages and official investor reports, I wrote about why I believe the company’s recently announced mystery game is actually an Alan Wake spinoff called Doors, which focuses heavily on several supporting characters from Wake 2.
I was admittedly hoping for this post to have a bit more traction than it has gotten so far. But it’s still pretty early - Doors isn’t coming out for at least 3 years. So, I’m hoping when they do reveal the 4th game I will have been proven right.
August 1
This was originally part of a longer post I was gonna make, which would’ve included my thoughts on Batman v Superman and the Superman Animated Series. But ultimately, I decided to just focus on critiquing the new movie, which I found to be overrated and very problematic in certain areas.
It seems I’m not the only one who had a really big issue with how this film chose to portray Superman’s parents, to the point that James Gunn now seems to be backtracking from his original claim that the video was unaltered (within the story), at least judging by what some have discovered in the recent video release.
August 2
Back when Servant was airing on Apple TV, I was hoping to recap every episode. That didn’t quite turn out as planned, but I managed to review pretty much every episode of the second season, with the exception of 2.09. Since Substack changed its formatting, my original images for the episodic reviews started to get cut off in the regular menus and interfaces, so I decided to make a custom navigation menu, much as I did for Sarah Connor, making the recaps more visually attractive and easier to navigate.
I hope to complete the S2 reviews sooner or later, but I sadly don’t have time at the moment. Honestly, recaps are tough to keep up with. They take effort to make but they don’t really get a lot of views or drive the conversation. Still, I’d love to one day have reviewed all episodes of Servant, if I can make it worth the time investment.
It wasn’t perfect. I think its best and most consistent season was its third, and even there the first few episodes were a little wobbly. The final season stumbled towards the finish line, particularly with 4.07 and the rushed series finale.
But even with its creative missteps and low points, the M. Night Shyamalan series was always a pleasure to watch and arguably THE best series about the Covid era that wasn’t literally about the Covid era.
August 8
I really missed the good old discussion threads and Substack Chat just wasn’t really working for me, so I decided to try an old-fashioned open question post following a viewing of Zach Cregger’s Weapons, a good film that I think got a little overhyped.
One thing I noticed during my screening is how I couldn’t really keep my eyes on the screen during the really gory sequences, especially at the end. This was strange, as I remember being able to watch much more violent and gory films (eg. Day of the Dead) without looking away or flinching when I was younger.
All this led to the question above. I wish a few more people had responded and shared their experiences, but I’m grateful for the comments I got.
Paywalled Archive
These currently are all the archived posts that are now paywalled and require a paid subscription to access. I plan to add more posts to the paywall over time.
Thank you for adding my page to the list! Appreciate what you’re doing 🫡